A son of Maulvi Zaheeruddin, Qutbuddin Hilal was born in 1952 in the Zazai Maidan district of Khost province. He graduated from Kabul Military Academy in 1970 and pursued his higher education in construction engineering. He completed his bachelor’s degree from the Engineering Academy in 1975.

Hilal served as an engineer in the planning and designing branch of Defence Ministry until 1978. He was imprisoned at the notorious Pul-i-Charkhi prison on charges of anti-state activities. After his release, he fled to Pakistan.

Hilal then joined the Heszb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) led by Engineer Gulbadin Hekmatyar. He headed HIA’s the political committee and served party chief for Paktia province. He later became head of the military commission tasked with uniting Jihadi Organisations besides heading the leadership council after the collapse of the Dr. Najibullah government in 1980.

Qutbuddin Helal Hilal, a former second in command under Hekmatyar, 2003 lived under virtual house arrest in Hayatabad, a suburb of Peshawar. Pakistani authorities say the detention is for Hilal's protection: Hilal recently broke with Hekmatyar to back the Karzai government. He now plays a prominent role in talks with the Karzais Government pretenting to speak for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami (also known as HIG). There is no proof that he really has a mandate from Hekmatyar to negotiate in his name. Most of the reporting on these “talks about talks” is sourced anonymously, so it is difficult to verify their validity and impossible to determine what motivates the anonymous sources to plant these stories.

Presidential spokesperson Aimal Faizi confirmed to the media that a Hezb delegation, led by its in charge of political affairs Dr Ghairat Baheer, met with Karzai “in a good atmosphere, and the results were good”. Other members of the delegation were: Qutbuddin Hilal, member of Hezb’s central executive committee, and Mehmood Salah, head of the cultural and information section of the group.(20120104).

Hilal twice served as first vice president in 1993 and 1996. A member of HIA, he filed nomination papers for the presidential elections 2014 as an independent candidate with Inayatullah Inayat his first vice president and Mohammad Ali Nabizada as his VP.

Ghairat Baheer, the head of the so-called political commission of Hizb-e-Islamai, said the central leadership has instructed supporters across the country “to actively take part" in the election campaign and vote for presidential candidate Qutbuddin Hilal. (20140215) In 2014 however Qutbuddin Helal, ran for president as an ‘independent,’ gathering 2.75 per cent of the vote in the first round.

It is rumored that dubious reports have been planted by the Karzai Government of rifts within the Taliban ranks in recent weeks. Public should believe Hizb-e-Islami’s decision to take part in the polls is likely to cause more problems for the insurgency and is expected to increase the legitimacy of the Afghan presidential elections.(20140217)